2.2 GHz Enough for Gaming?

Hi I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck for my first laptop. I'll be heading to college soon.

I've been looking at the Gateway P Series. I'm trying to decide between the p 173x fx http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668096.php
and the p 173xl fx http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668093.php

I don't need the extra 200gigs of the XL, and I think I can deal with the 1440x900 screen of the X, but I'm not sure if the .2 GHz difference is ok with me.

I currently play World of Warcraft and Command and Conquer 3. I want to be able to continue to play those games on high, and I would like to be able to play Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Crysis, Company of Heroes, and other games well. Not necessarily perfect, but well.

What do you guys think? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

With the 8800GTS and either one of those CPU's, you will have no problem playing anything on high.

 

Since these days we're talking 2.2GHz Core2 processors then the answer is 'yes' for the games you've mentioned.

But since we are talking laptops then my advice is to get as much CPU and GPU power that you can afford at time of purchase as these aren't easily upgradeable down the road.

 

Unless you have a *really* weak cpu, it won't be a bottleneck. The t7500 is more than sufficient for gaming.

 

While the 8800M GTS is very powerful, it's certainly the bottleneck either way. A 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo and a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo have one important thing in common paired with anything less than SLI 8800s: they're overkill. Unless you're big into "Pi to 100 Million Decimals: The Game" or something.

 

Yeah that CPU should be plenty. Also, I wouldn't go overboard too much with components because those will work great now, and you can always upgrade later for a much better price tag.

 

Yup, I would go low on RAM and Hard-drive, since they are much cheaper after-market.

 

Well at least RAM. That is the easiest to upgrade by yourself, and the cheapest to buy...

As for HD, I simply go with a nice external instead of going crazy with expensive internal 2.5" drives...

Just my $0.02...

 

Eh, I usually use internal, as I don't like external HDD's too much.

 

You will need a fast internal drive though for software etc. If you connect an external drive through usb 2.0, it'll run much slower than most internal drives. For example, my external 750gig 7200rpm drive only gets about 30mb/s while my internal 160gig 5400rpm drive gets about 36mb/s. External drives are fine for storage though just not the OS or any programs.

 

If you have the money, get the 2000$ config. The extra screen real estate will help quite a lot for office apps and multitasking in general.

 

Okay thanks a lot for your help. I think I'm conviced that 2.2GHz is sufficient. I'm not sure about the screen though. Is 1440x900 ok for a 17''? What resolution do you guys normally play games on?

 

I play most of my games around the 1024x768 mark. that is my prefferrance, I like a lower resolution so I can see the game on the screen, to high I cant see it, I have higher res screens, (1680x1050) and a desktop (1920x1200) so I can go higher.

 

1440x900 is plenty for me, but 1920x1200 is going to give you a lot more space to work with.

 

Yeah I meant for storage not to run your OS off of. >.< That would just be silly lol.

 

You would be surprised how many people I have known who tried that...

 

ROFL. Wow... That would be like a last resort only sort of situation. XD lol

 

Your not gonna see any difference between a Core 2 running at 2.2Ghz and a Core 2 @ 2.4Ghz. 200Mhz really makes very little difference. In benchmarks you'll see a difference, in games you won't. I'd save the $500 and go with the cheaper model. For gaming they are pretty much equal. Both have a great mobile GPU, more then enough ram, and a solid CPU.

 

Well, had a buddy who had an Emachines laptop with a 20G hard-drive. Figured one of those sweet 80Gb externals would replace it.



He was wrong.

 

To the OP: If you're big on games like Supreme Commander and World in Conflict and REALLY like 8+ player games at high resolutions, then there's no such thing as enough CPU power. Other than that what everyone else has said is true, an 8800GTS coupled with a 2Ghz processor really is overkill for most applications.

 

even a 1.66ghz c2d won't bottleneck your games, just stress out the gpu with 16AA 16AF @1920*1200.

 

Oh, and as for 17" resolutions, I have 1920X1200 and love it. It makes gaming and videos (full 1080p ) very nice, and makes surfing great as well.

Well I am not old (not gonna actually say my age lol), I can easily read anything on normal web pages from an arm and a half lengths away from my screen with no problem. So by no means would I worry about the resolution being "too high".

Hope this helps!

 

THATS A HANDFUL of cpu, you wont need more for gaming.